One of the conversations I find myself eternally having with creative friends is how hard self-promotion is.
The whole talking up of yourself, where you sense the status-imbalance and it’s uncomfortable for most of us with an ounce of humility, and the sheer repetitive awkwardness of it all.
I am always on the lookout for better ways to explain this. Partly to make others (and myself) more comfortable with it. But also because I know it’s just a part of putting yourself out there creatively and hoping somebody notices.
Bob Odenkirk explained PR and media tours to promote movies to Mike Birbiglia in a way that might be my new favorite.
I’m saving this quote for any time somebody says it feels strange or awkward to go out and promote a project. It’s a perfect framing, in that it’s so relatable and human, to keep your head centered and make sure you don’t get lost in the strangeness of the entire experience.
(As I transcribed and lightly edited it for clarity:)
Look, at some point I realized what you have to do is you have to remember that you are sitting at a wedding table and it's not your wedding. The uncle of the person getting married is sitting next to you, and the neighbor, and a young person who's a nephew, and - you don't know them and they don't know you.
They don't really know what you do. That's who you're talking to when you're on a talk show, or when you're on a red carpet. And you've got to be polite and you have to be clear.
When people go, “You're better call Saul!” You have to go, yes, I play that character. My name is Bob Odenkirk and I'm an actor. And I was on a show called Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. And you may think you sound like an ass, but you're not, because there's a bunch of people watching who are going, “Oh, I never knew that. Breaking Bad, I've heard of that show.”
And we all think we can just be ourselves and chat and make comments and be calm and casual. You can't. You have to be ON. You’re presenting. And these are kind strangers who have somehow, through YouTube or the TV that was just on, been forced to listen to you - they don’t know who you are.
You have to assume people don’t know who you are.
Until they tell you they know, or they make a perfect connection and show some depth, you can just act like you’ve been seated at a wedding with a bunch of random people and operate from a place of introducing yourself and what you’re up to so they can make sense of the situation.
And in most of life, you get to do the same for them. At the wedding you will hear what they do too. That’s where it’s a touch different depending on what medium you’re a part of, and how or if you’re directly promoting or just sharing, but the core idea still stands.
But, in Odenkirk’s framing, self-promotion reduces down to: explaining in a clear and kind way why other people might care about what you do.
This is not the part where you convert them or they become your biggest fan.
This is just the part where you introduce a thread they may choose to pull on their own volition. You made the introduction that there’s more there. It’s all (and the least) you can do.
